37th Assembly race offers voters two vastly different choices

It would be difficult to imagine a political contest in which the contrast between candidates is more stark than in western Ventura County's 37th Assembly District.

Democratic incumbent Das Williams, of Santa Barbara, is a committed advocate of clean energy and a strong supporter of California's landmark efforts to combat global warming by rolling back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.

Republican Rob Walter asserts "there is no proof of man-made global warming. That's a ruse to gain further control over other people's activities." As for the government subsidies to grow the green energy industry, he says there "is no more inefficient industry than the government."

Williams proudly voted this summer for a bill that makes California the first state to outlaw the practice of licensed therapists engaging in "gay therapy" with minors in an attempt to change their sexual orientation. He calls the practice abusive, and says the law is narrowly tailored so that it still allows psychologists to work with teenagers "to reduce the sexual urges of any kid."

Walter says lawmakers lost their moral compass in approving that legislation.

"That's a bill that by itself should cause people to get the heck out of California," he said. "It's a sign of a Legislature that's beholden to a strong and powerful homosexual lobby."

Pick an issue, and chances are very good that Walter and Williams disagree. On Proposition 30, the incumbent is for it and the challenger is against it. On school vouchers, the challenger is for them, the incumbent against.

The incumbent supports the right of a woman to choose an abortion. The challenger believes the state should adopt a personhood amendment that would say that life legally begins at the moment an egg is fertilized.

"In 25 to 50 years, we will look back on abortion as we currently look back on slavery," Walter said.

"It's a good contrast," he said. "Our values come from the same faith background, but we have very different views about how to move ahead in California."

The makeup of district voters strongly favors Williams, as Democrats enjoy a 15 percentage-point advantage in voter registration, and just under 30 percent of voters are registered Republicans.

In addition, Williams enjoys a huge fundraising advantage. While Walter has not yet raised the several thousand dollars that would require him to file electronic campaign finance reports, Williams reported having raised $339,000 through Sept. 30. He appears to be so confident of his chances that he contributed more than $90,000 in the first six months of the year to the state Democratic Party and various Democratic candidates for the Assembly.

The district is bisected by the Ventura-Santa Barbara County line, with slightly more than half of its voters residing in Ventura County. It includes the cities of Ventura, Ojai, Santa Paula and Fillmore.

Williams, 38, is seeking his second term in the Assembly. If he wins, he will serve as chairman of the Higher Education Committee next year.

He grew up in western Ventura County, his family having moved to the Ojai Valley when he was an infant. He was a high-school dropout and a devoted surfer at age 17, homeless and living on the streets of Isla Vista. Simultaneously, he says, he found Christianity and Democratic politics and his life turned around.

By the time he was 20, he was attending UC Berkeley on a scholarship; in his early 20s, he was working as staff member in the Assembly; and at age 29, he became the youngest person elected to the Santa Barbara City Council.

He says he hopes in his second term to focus on higher education, and trying to find a revenue source that could be dedicated exclusively to public colleges and universities. His first attempt at that — a bill to set up a trust to lease surplus state property and devote the revenue to higher education — was vetoed this fall by Gov. Jerry Brown.

"I'm going to make it very clear that the lack of access to higher education is the biggest issue," Williams said.

Because college fees have soared over the last decade, he said, "A lot of people either are not getting into the educational system at all or taking a long time to get through because of a lack of classes."

Walter, 61, is an attorney who grew up in Michigan and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. He has never held elected office.

He says he is running in part because: "We need quality choices and alternatives in education; choices directed by parents, not bureaucrats. ... Most of all, we need a return to time-tested values and principles upon which this great nation was founded."

One issue on which Walter has challenged Williams is his decision to abstain on a committee vote this summer on a bill that sought to change the law on how school districts could dismiss teachers accused of "serious or egregious unprofessional conduct."

The defeat of the bill received national attention after CNN broadcast a story that attributed the measure's defeat to the political influence of the California Teachers Association, which had contributed campaign funds to the members, included Williams, who chose not to vote for the bill. Walter cites the vote as evidence that Williams is "a puppet in the hands of the CTA."

Williams says he was had strong policy concerns about the bill and abstained, rather than vote no, to send a signal to the bill's author that he is willing to negotiate so that he could support a different version of the measure.

Of foremost concern, he said, is that the bill, Senate Bill 1530, would have given school board members, rather than professional arbiters, final decision on the firing of a teacher.

He notes that reformers acted more than a century ago to depoliticize public education by adding job protections to prevent school boards from firing teachers based on political or ideological considerations.

"It's not a good idea to have school boards presiding over the hiring and firing of employees when that was taken away 100 years ago," he said.

Williams said he is actively working with the bill's author, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, to develop an evidence-based, quasi-judicial process "that will speed things up and also protect due process."